Monday, November 01, 2010

Election Preview

- The GOP will win over 60 seats in the House, their biggest victory since 1938. For years political scientists and strategists have looked to 1994 as the model of modern conservative resurgence. No longer. Starting tomorrow, they will instead look back to 2010.

- John Boehner will be about as interesting a House Speaker as a Jane Dolan government class. He will not, however, be viewed as extreme, like our current one.

- Harry Reid will lose to Sharron Angle in Nevada.

- We could very well see a 50-50 Senate.

- All of this will seal Obama's re-election chances, if he is smart. I'm not sure he is, though. Intellectual? Certainly. Smart? Not so sure.

- Barnes vs. Deal? Who cares. I don't even know who belongs to what party and I have no clue what their respective platforms are. It's state politics. Voting for PTO mom is probably more relevant. I would still vote Republican though.

- Republicans winning will mean more gridlock at the federal level, which is great news. Most in the media love to chastise gridlock as evidence that Washington is "broken" and that "nothing gets done." But anyone who's read the country's founding documents or Federalist No. 51knows thatthat's the whole point.

The whole federal structure intricately designed by Jefferson and Madison was intended to prevent stuff from happening and to prevent policy-making from being held hostage by voters' short-term passions. George Will put it best on ABC's This Week yesterday: "Gridlock is not an American problem, it is an American achievement. The founders did not want an efficient government, they wanted a safe government. Gridlock is not a sign that the system is broken. It's a sign the system is working."